How the Bowie Became America’s Knife

The Bowie knife is truly America’s knife. There are towns named after it, and it’s namesake, it’s Arkansas’ official state knife, it has appeared in iconic movies, and a variation of the classic design, the Ka-Bar, was issued to U.S. troops. Like many of the best American origin stories, the Bowie knife is immersed in legend, hearsay, journalistic embellishments, and the romance of the early American Western frontier. 

To this day, there is little concrete evidence, and numerous conflicting reports about how the Bowie knife came to be. What we do know is that nearly 200 years after the Bowie knife and its owner were made famous in a deadly brawl, it is still one of the most popular knife styles. The Bowie knife is as much a part of the lore of the expansion of America as the man that it is named after, James “Jim” Bowie. 

So, where did the Bowie knife come from, how did it get to where it is today, and what does its future look like? It all began with a fight. 

The Infamous Sandbar Brawl

The Bowie knife became famous on September 19, 1827, when Jim Bowie was involved in a deadly battle on a Mississippi River sandbar near Natchez, Mississippi. 

The fight broke out after Samuel Levi Wells III and Dr. Thomas Maddox participated in a formal duel. Bowie was Wells’ second in the duel. Both parties had supporters present, and a large group of spectators attended. The two men exchanged shots, but neither was hit. Then one of Maddox’s supporters, Robert Crain, shot one of Wells’ supporters, Samuel Cuny. Bowie returned fire at Crain.

Then another member of the Maddox party shot Bowie in the chest. Bowie took out his soon-to-be-famous knife and chased down the man who shot him. Bowie was then shot in the thigh and stabbed several times while using his knife to stab a man in the chest, killing him, and nearly severed another man’s arm.

The fight only lasted 10 minutes, but it left two men dead and two wounded. Accounts vary, but Bowie was shot two to four times, stabbed four to 12 times, and pistol whipped for good measure. He miraculously survived this ordeal, and news of his fight and his weapon of choice made national newspapers. Soon, people all over were asking their blacksmith or bladesmith to make them a Bowie knife.

While the Sandbar fight made the Bowie knife famous, its origins date back to a conflict with the same man Bowie would kill on that Mississippi sandbar. While details are unverifiable and often conflicting, Bowie and his brother, Rezin, were in a serious fight with a banker, Major Norris Wright. That fight spurred Rezin to commission a blacksmith to make a knife for Bowie to use for personal protection. 

Bowie had a new blade made after the Sandbar fight with some design changes, and would carry his new knife until his famous death at the Alamo. By that time, the Bowie knife was already cemented into the culture of America.

Even the famous ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody used a Bowie knife. In his last interview, published May 1917 in Outdoor Life, author Chauncey Thomas asked, “What kind of knife did you kill Yellowhand with?”

Yellowhand (more accurately translated Yellow Hair) was a Cheyenne war chief that Cody reportedly killed and is part of his lore.

“Just a big heavy Bowie blade,” Cody replied. He went on to mention that he used the Bowie for cutting meat and skinning too.

The Original Bowie Maker

Blacksmith Jesse Clifft likely made Bowie’s original Sandbar Fight knife in Louisiana. It was supposedly commissioned by Bowie’s brother Rezin. There are differing accounts and claims about who made the first Bowie knife and who made the shape we know today. But, there seems to be a fairly strong consensus that blade smith James Black made Bowie’s knife after the sandbar duel.

It was with this knife that Bowie would fight for the independence of Texas with, the knife he would allegedly kill three assassins with, and later, the knife he would die fighting at the Alamo with. This knife, and others made by Black would contribute heavily to what we know as the Bowie knife today. Black had reportedly developed a proprietary process to heat treat and temper his blades, making them superior to other blades of the time. This heat treat recipe was kept secret, and near the end of his life, when Black was willing to pass on his secrets, he could not remember, and it reportedly drove him mad.

Much of the information we have about Black and his involvement with the Bowie knife comes from Daniel Jones whose family took Black in when he fell on hard times. Jones went on to be Governor of Arkansas and was adamant about the claims to the Bowie knife that Black made.

Read Next: The Best Bowie Knives, Tested and Reviewed

The Bowie Knife’s Decline in Popularity

Bowie knives were everywhere, and demand was high, that is, until the Civil War came to a close. Americans had enough bloodshed, and the Bowie knife was considered a fighting knife. Part of the reason the Bowie knife became so popular is because pistols of the day were unreliable, inaccurate, and only held one shot. 

However, after the Civil War, revolvers became commonplace and were a huge improvement over the flintlocks from Bowie’s day. What was once the Bowie knife’s biggest selling point had now become its Achilles heel. It was a knife born and bred to fight, but now the fight was over. This is not to say that Bowie style knives were dead, but just as quickly as they exploded into popularity, they fell back out of it. Knife makers continued to make Bowie knives, but they began to make them a bit smaller and adapt them to the new market that was emerging — knives for outdoorsmen. 

Activities like hunting, fishing, and ranching were people’s primary drive for knife buying in the post-Civil War era. American’s were looking at knives as general-purpose cutting tools, and not as defensive weapons. Public life was changing, and hanging a fighting knife with a 12-inch blade off your hip was no longer in style, nor was it needed. The Bowie knife survived by shrinking and in many cases shedding some of the features that made it a good fighter. However, the fighting spirit of the Bowie would bring it back to the forefront of American culture as another war loomed, and a fighting knife was once again needed. 

The Bowie’s Rebirth

It would make sense that a fighting knife would come back to life when it was needed for another fight. The Great War (WWI) saw a need for a fighting knife for the troops, but the reality was that many soldiers brought knives from home since production for the chosen battle knife could not keep up, and it wasn’t practical to carry. However, when WWII came, the knife commissioned for production was a Bowie-style blade. It had a clip point and top and bottom guard — traits that a Bowie blade was known for. While there were several companies making the USMC Fighting Knife, the one that did it best was Union Cutlery Company, which marked their knives “Ka-Bar.” Union Cutlery would go on to officially change the name of the company to Ka-Bar because the knives became so popular and well known. In that same era, a man named Hoyt Buck was making his early versions of the model 119 — the Buck 119. 

The Buck 119 was not billed as a fighting knife but as a hunter’s knife. And they were gaining popularity as Buck advertised his blades as practical tools. The 119 helped the Bowie break out of the fighting knife pigeonhole it had been trapped in for so long. So, between returning GIs looking for something similar to what they used overseas and Buck and other up-and-coming knife makers billing Bowies as practical knives, the Bowie knife was making a comeback. 

Read Next: An Ode to the Buck Knife, the Only Deer Gutting Blade I’ll Ever Need

The Bowie in Pop-Culture

The final boost that Bowie needed to be back on top would come shortly after WWII ended, and it came in the form of the film “The Iron Mistress,” which was a mostly fictional tale about Jim Bowie and his famous blade. During that time America fell back in love with the lore of the Old West, and you can’t have tales from the frontier without tales of the Bowie knife. There was hardly a Western made that didn’t feature a Bowie knife at some point. There were also TV series made about Jim Bowie, he was featured in Westerns, and several movies were made about the Alamo.

The Bowie was cool again, and it had successfully made the jump from versatile fighting knife, to an outdoorsman’s knife. Several popular knife makers would come out of the post-war era and help give birth to the golden age of the Bowie. The Bowie maintained popularity in the film industry even after the Westerns fell out of favor. 

John Rambo carried his now famous version of the Bowie knife with added spine serrations and survival kit stored in the handle. While not a classic Bowie, it was a Bowie shape, and it helped keep the Bowie alive and well as it adapted to new tastes. 

Crocodile Dundee was another film that prominently featured a Bowie and has caused untold numbers of people to exclaim, “That’s not a knife, THAT’s a knife,” in terrible Australian accents. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard that line, or a variation of it when I show someone one of my Bowie knives. Even today, popular video games feature Bowie-style knives as backup and close-quarter weapons. TV Shows like “Forged in Fire” have featured dozens of Bowie knives and showcased many custom makers who specialize in Bowie-style blades.

The Bowie’s Current Influence

The current knife market is chock full of Bowie-inspired blades, and they continue to be great sellers. At this point, the term Bowie has been used for a great variety of knives that hold to the most classic Bowie design characteristic, which is the clip point blade. I have knives that bear the Bowie name that range from 2-inch blades to over 12-inch blades. At this point, a Bowie knife is no longer a large fighting blade, but a style of blade that has many specialized variations to tackle all different types of cutting work. 

I would argue that there has never been a knife style that has so heavily influenced the knife world. I have met several well-known blade smiths and seen the work of many more, and I can’t think of a single one of them who doesn’t have a Bowie-inspired design in their body of work.  

Nearly every knife manufacturer has at least one Bowie in their lineup, and Bowie-style blades dominate some maker’s lines. Even folding knives have taken the Bowie name and style, and keep the legend alive in a new way. The truth is that the Bowie knife has inspired a majority of the fixed blade knives that are currently being sold in America. I don’t think that the influence of the Bowie knife on modern knife design can be overstated.

The Future of the Bowie

The truth is that no one person is responsible for giving us the Bowie that we know today. It is an amalgamation of many similar blades that were produced by a melting pot of blade smiths in the late 1820s and 1830s. The timeline surrounding the guard being added and false edge and clip point are all unsure, and there just isn’t documentation in place to fully prove anyone’s claims. But that isn’t the important part. What matters is that it all happened. We can’t be sure about the process, but we can be sure about the product. And the product is an excellent knife design.

I’m confident that the Bowie knife will continue to be an important part of knife culture in America, and American culture at large. The main reason that the Bowie has outlasted so many other parts of American culture is the fact that it’s still useful. It’s still a good design. It’s practical, and it’s working art. It is a useful sculpture that is both good to look at, and good in the hand. The Bowie knife has captured something about the American pioneering spirit and, in doing so, has put an indelible mark on culture. 

Am I waxing poetic about a chunk of steel and wood? Yes. Over the top? Maybe. But as a lover of American history and knives, the Bowie hits all of the marks for me. It’s the nexus of two subjects I am passionate about. If you aren’t a knife nerd or a history buff, I think we can all appreciate an iconic part of American culture, that remains a useful tool for any outdoorsman needing a good knife.  

 

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